1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of communication systems, and more particularly, to transmitting error correction information.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wireless communication services have become ubiquitous as communication technologies have advanced. Mobile broadcasting is one technology that has gained popularity amongst communication service providers. Mobile broadcasting provides communication services providers with an efficient mechanism to deliver content to wireless customers when many users request the same content.
Communication service providers face many challenges when broadcasting content to mobile customers. For example, the signal quality between a service provider and a customer can severely impact service quality. A low quality signal between a service provider and a customer can result in data loss, packet loss, jitter, and other service problems.
In some cases, content can be retransmitted if the original transmission contains errors. However, retransmitting data wastes bandwidth and other processing resources. In addition, it is very likely that if an original transmission has errors, any retransmission of data will also have errors.
In other cases, forward error correction is used to correct transmission errors caused by low signal quality. Typically, forward error correction involves sending content data and error correction information. The error correction information is processed at the receiving end to correct for transmission errors in the content. Forward error correction can be employed at either the link layer or the packet layer of a communication link.
Unfortunately, forward error correction schemes typically require intensive processing by mobile devices. Such processing draws on finite resources, such as the battery power or memory of a device. In addition, prior art forward error correction schemes require all devices receiving a broadcast to employ forward error correction, even though some devices may receive the broadcast content without errors. Such schemes waste device resources.